🚀 go-pugleaf

Every couple of months I wander into these groups and ask if anyone
who has the same setup as me has had this problem. As of yet; I
haven't gotten any replies. I can't be the only person in the world
with these two cards together though.

Here's my problem... I have a 1st pre-1st generation; semi-quasi;
pseudo- 2D/3D card the old Diamond Stealth 3D 2000 w/ 2 megs of ram
(the very 1st model with the original Virge chip). I also have a
Matrox M3d accelerator card with 4 mb of dedicated texture ram (uses
the PCX2 Power VR chip).

Normally; these two cards work together just fine. They rarely
conflict; and when they do... it's usually game specific and results
in the game recognizing the Stealth when I want to use the Matrox for
D3D.

My problem is... as far as I can tell... I cannot ever play any game
based on the Quake I or Quake II engine for more than 10 minutes or so
without it crashing. Sometimes it just exits out to my desktop with no
errors all of a sudden. Sometimes there is an error message; but with
no set pattern. Sometimes the damn thing just re-boots the PC on it's
own. I get the same exact behavior with Quake I; Quake II; and now...
with both SiN and Half-Life! I  have plenty of RAM (64 megs) and
plenty of free space on my HD for virtual memory (3 gigs); so I don't
think it's a memory issue. I used to think it only happened with the
GL versions; but it seems to more prerequisited on just any Quake
engine game. Oh yeah... Hexen and Heretic too; of course.

I have gone round and round with Activision; Matrox and the Diamond
people about this. No one seems to have a clue. I have tried using the
Matrox M3d mini-gl drivers for Quake games; it makes no difference
either. I have tried using non-Matrox and non-Stealth drivers and just
used the generic S3 Virge and Power VR drivers respectively...S.O.S..
I'm beginning to think it's just a compatibility conflict between the
two cards that only manifests itself when trying to play these types
of games. As I remember; I never had any problem like this before I
got the M3d and just ran the Diamond alone. The M3d is not a
pass-through card; it is a stand-alone accelerator though. I could
chuck the M3d and go back to the Diamond; but then these games look
pretty crappy using it; and forget playing GL versions. The Matrox
definitely has better D3D graphics.

The reason I'm posting this in the 3dfx.opengl group this time as well
is because I hope to get a Monster card soon (I have a pentium non-MMX
166 and a Voodoo II would be over-kill) and the people at Diamond have
always assured that the old Monster works quite nicely with an old
Stealth card; but i was wondering if anybody already had that setup
and could confirm it for me. Also; as always... I was hoping anybody
with a Stealth/M3d combo could tell if they ever had any problems.
I've almost given up; and although a fix would be great; I'd just like
to know that it does happen so I'd know I'm not alone in this. Oh
yeah; I've tried shifting the boards around in all the PCI slots as
well... and no, there aren't any IRQ conflicts under Device manager
either. Thanks to everyone for your attention.